The wrapper is the one leaf you see, so it is the one most cigars are named and sold by. A shop shelf sorts itself by wrapper before anything else: pale tan cigars on one side, dark brown and near-black cigars on the other, with words like Connecticut, habano, Cameroon, and maduro on the bands. This chapter of Cigars 101 explains what those words mean. Some describe a color. Some describe a seed variety. Some describe where the leaf was grown, and some describe how it was processed. Many bands mix all four, which is why wrapper names can be confusing.
The short version is this: color is what the finished leaf looks like, seed is what plant it came from, origin is where it was farmed, and shade or sun is how it was farmed. They are separate facts.
Why the wrapper gets its own name
A cigar has three kinds of leaf, described in wrapper, binder, and filler. The filler makes up most of the cigar and supplies most of its strength. The wrapper is a single thin leaf on the outside, but it touches your lips, it burns with every puff, and it is the first thing you smell. That gives it a larger effect on flavor than its weight would suggest.
Wrapper is also the most expensive leaf in the cigar. It has to be large, elastic, free of holes and heavy veins, and even in color, because any flaw is visible. Farms grow wrapper differently from filler for that reason, as growing cigar tobacco explains, and factories sort it more strictly.
The color scale
The traditional wrapper color names run from lightest to darkest. Trade guides such as Cigar Journal list seven main categories:
- Candela (also called double claro): a green wrapper. The green comes from drying the leaf quickly with heat so it keeps its chlorophyll. It was popular in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, which is why it is sometimes called American Market Selection (AMS). It is uncommon today.
- Claro: light tan. Often associated with shade-grown Connecticut-seed leaf.
- Colorado claro: light to medium brown. Many cigars sold as "natural" fall here.
- Colorado: medium brown with a reddish tint. Also called rosado.
- Colorado maduro: darker medium brown, between colorado and maduro.
- Maduro: dark brown to nearly black.
- Oscuro: the darkest shade, nearly black. Sometimes called double maduro.
Factories recognize many more shades than these seven, and they do not all draw the lines in the same place. One maker's colorado maduro may look like another maker's maduro. Treat the names as approximate.
"Natural" is not a step on the old scale. It is a shop word for a wrapper in its ordinary brown color, as opposed to a maduro, and it covers a range from claro to colorado. See natural wrapper.
Color does not tell you strength
A dark wrapper does not mean a strong cigar, and a light wrapper does not mean a mild one. Strength comes mainly from the filler, especially the amount of ligero in the bunch. A pale claro wrapper can cover a full-strength blend. A maduro wrapper can cover a mild one. Long fermentation tends to make a wrapper taste sweeter and smoother rather than harsher, which is one reason makers put maduro wrappers on both mild and full blends. Strength, body, and flavor covers how these terms differ.
How a wrapper gets its color
Three things set the final color: the plant and how it was grown, how the leaf was cured, and how long and how hot it was fermented.
Shade-grown leaf tends to be thinner and lighter. Sun-grown leaf tends to be thicker, oilier, and darker after curing. Curing in the barn turns green leaf brown. Fermentation in piles at the factory darkens it further and changes its flavor.
A maduro is mostly a result of processing, not a separate plant. The leaf is fermented longer, often at higher temperatures, until it darkens. Not every leaf can take that treatment, so makers usually choose thick, sturdy wrapper for maduro, such as broadleaf or Mexican San Andrés. Some maduro wrapper comes from stalk-cut plants, where the whole plant is cut at once rather than picked leaf by leaf. An oscuro is taken further still. Padrón sells many of its lines with both natural and maduro wrappers, which lets you compare the same blend with two treatments of the wrapper.
Candela is the exception at the light end: it is dried fast with heat so it never turns brown.
Shade-grown and sun-grown wrapper
Shade-grown wrapper is grown under cloth, called tapado, which filters the sun. The plants grow taller and the leaves come out thin, smooth, and elastic, with fine veins. Sun-grown wrapper is grown in open fields. The leaves are thicker and oilier, with more visible veins, and they cure darker.
Neither is better. They are grown for different results. In Ecuador, frequent cloud cover filters the sun in a similar way to cloth, so wrapper can be grown there with little or no tenting.
The common wrapper names
These are the names you will see most often on bands and in catalogs.
Connecticut shade: Connecticut-seed tobacco grown under cloth. It is the classic light wrapper, usually claro to colorado claro, smooth and silky. Shade growing began in the Connecticut River Valley around 1900. Much of the Connecticut-seed wrapper used today is grown in Ecuador, so "Connecticut" on a band usually means the seed and the growing method, not the state.
Connecticut broadleaf: a different tobacco from the same valley. It is sun-grown, short and bushy, with wide leaves, and it is stalk-cut. The leaf is thick and cures dark, so it is used mainly for maduro wrappers. Pennsylvania broadleaf, grown mainly in Lancaster County, is a related sun-grown leaf used the same way. Ashton's Aged Maduro, for example, uses a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper.
Habano: a Cuban-seed tobacco grown in full sun, mostly in Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Honduras. It is usually colorado to colorado maduro in color and oilier than Connecticut shade. "Habano" on a band describes the seed. It does not mean the cigar was made in Cuba.
Corojo: another Cuban-seed variety, named for the El Corojo farm in Cuba's Vuelta Abajo region. Seed taken out of Cuba is grown in Honduras, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, sometimes as a crossbred line. It is often reddish and sun-grown. Like habano, it is a seed name, not proof of Cuban origin. See also criollo and Cuban seed.
Ecuadorian: this word names the country where the leaf was grown, not the seed. Ecuadorian farms grow Connecticut, habano, Sumatra, and other seeds. An Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper and an Ecuadorian habano wrapper look and taste different.
Cameroon: wrapper grown in Cameroon and the neighboring Central African Republic. It is known for its bumpy texture, called tooth, and a reddish-brown color. It is a delicate leaf that does not suit heavy fermentation, and supply is limited.
Sumatra: named for the Indonesian island where the seed comes from. Indonesian Sumatra leaf is still used, but much of the Sumatra wrapper on today's premium cigars is Sumatra-seed tobacco grown in Ecuador, often sold as "Ecuador Sumatra."
San Andrés: tobacco from the San Andrés Tuxtla valley in Veracruz, Mexico. The best-known type, San Andrés negro, is grown in the sun and cures very dark. It is one of the two most widely used maduro wrappers, along with Connecticut broadleaf, and it is also used as binder.
How to read a wrapper on a band
When a band or a catalog describes a wrapper, sort the words into the four facts:
- Color: claro, colorado, maduro, oscuro, natural.
- Seed: Connecticut, habano, corojo, criollo, Sumatra, broadleaf.
- Origin: Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cameroon, Mexico, the United States.
- Method: shade-grown or sun-grown.
"Ecuador Habano" is origin plus seed. "Connecticut Shade" is seed plus method. "San Andrés Maduro" is origin plus color. "Nicaraguan Maduro" is origin plus color, and it tells you nothing about the seed. Once you see the pattern, most wrapper descriptions become easy to read. A cigar's country on the band is a third separate fact: it is where the cigar was rolled, which may differ from where the wrapper was grown.
The best way to learn wrappers is to smoke the same blend in two wrappers. Many makers sell a line in natural and maduro, or in Connecticut and habano, with the same filler and binder.
Where to go next
- The three leaves: wrapper, binder, and filler.
- How wrapper is farmed: growing cigar tobacco.
- How strength differs from flavor: strength, body, and flavor.
- The part overview: how cigars are made.
- Terms: claro, colorado, colorado maduro, maduro, oscuro, candela, tooth, and the rest of the glossary.
- The full course: Cigars 101.
Smoke Rings sells the tools and not the tobacco: cutters, lighters, and humidors, sold through eBay (seller us-grai), plus empty cigar boxes for collectors. For the cigars themselves, our sponsor AbsoluteCigars.com is your best source.
Sources: Cigar Journal, 'Cigar Trivia: Wrapper Colors' (seven color categories from candela/double claro to oscuro/double maduro; candela popular in the U.S. in the 1960s-70s as American Market Selection; maduro from long, hot fermentation of thicker leaf). Cigars International Cigar 101 and CigarCyclopedia basics (double claro/AMS, colorado claro as natural/EMS). Holt's Cigar Company: Connecticut Broadleaf Tobacco (sun-grown, stalk-cut, Connecticut River Valley, used for maduro; shade introduced about 1900); Natural vs Maduro (Connecticut broadleaf and San Andrés as the two most common maduro wrappers; Ashton Aged Maduro uses Connecticut broadleaf); Guide to Cigar Wrappers and Colors (Pennsylvania broadleaf, Lancaster area); What is a Cameroon Wrapper? (Cameroon and Central African Republic, tooth, unsuited to aggressive fermentation); All About Sumatra Cigar Wrappers (most Sumatra wrapper used today grown in Ecuador). Cigar Aficionado, 'Black Gold' (San Andrés black tobacco, Turrent family, used for maduro wrappers and binders). No statistics, scores, or tasting notes.